Museums wager Impressionist art on their Super Bowl teams

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How lovely would it be not only to see the Packers win but also to have a nice little Renoir to gloat over, sent by the losing Pittsburgh-based museum to MAM.

“I’m confident that we will be enjoying the Renoir from the Carnegie Museum of Art very soon," said MAM director Daniel T. Keegan in a statement that barely concealed his ardor for the dappled painting of lounging, fleshy females. "I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers.”

Keegan, incidentally, is a Green Bay native.

Of course, should the Packers lose to the Steelers, MAM will have to pack up one of its very best artworks, "Boating on the Yerres" by Gustav Caillebotte, and send it off to the Carnegie. It is one of the finest examples of Impressionism in the permanent collection at MAM, a museum that is not rich on Impressionists in the first place.

(A footnote: The Caillebotte was a gift of the Milwaukee Journal to the museum in 1965.)

It's important to note that the museums are betting a temporary loan. Still, the institutions are betting one of their most treasured works. Even a temporary parting is going to hurt. (Though one of the Carnegie's Van Goghs would have been a real bet.)

This is the second year in a row that Green has prompted a bet. At this time last year, before the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl, Green instigated a bet between the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

“In Pittsburgh, we believe trash talk is bad form," said Lynn Zelavansky, the Carnegie's director in a statement. "We let the excellence of our football team, and our collection, speak for itself."

Last year, the Indianapolis museum wagered a painting by British romantic landscape artist J.M.W. Turner, while the New Orleans bet a work by Baroque painter Claude Lorrain.

When the Saints won, Indy sent its lovely Turner, with its dramatic and stirred-up sky, to New Orleans. It hung in the Louisiana museum's galleries for three months.

The big game will be played at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 6 in Arlington, Texas, just ouside Dallas. Dates for the art loan are still being worked out.

Images from top: "Bathers with Crab" by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from the collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art; "Boating on the Yerres" by Gustav Caillebotte, from the Milwaukee Art Museum collection.

About Mary Louise Schumacher

Mary Louise Schumacher is the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic. She writes about culture, design, the urban landscape and Milwaukee's creative community. Art City is her award-winning cultural page and a community of more than 20 contributing writers and artists. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

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